Samarkand is the photograph. Bukhara is the one people go back for.
Which Registan tour gets you inside the madrasahs and which leaves you standing in the square. What a seat on the fast train to Bukhara costs. Whether the rusting ships at Muynak justify two days of a short trip.
The four days a first Uzbekistan itinerary is built on.
One in each city, west along the road. What each costs, how long it runs, and what the people who booked it said afterwards.
01The first morningHistorical Monuments Guided Walking TourThe Gur-e-Amir, Shah-i-Zinda and the Registan on foot, before the coaches reach the square.
02The Bukhara dayBukhara Full Day Old City Private TourTrading domes, the Kalyan minaret and the old quarter, at the pace of somebody who lives there.
03Inside the wallsKhiva Historical City Highlights Guided Walking TourItchan Kala end to end. Khiva is small enough to walk and dense enough to need a guide.
04The day off the roadBest of Tashkent Mountains: Amirsoy, Chimgan & Charvak TripCharvak reservoir and the Amirsoy ridge, ninety minutes from Tashkent. Green water, cold, no tilework.
Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva: how the days differ.
Almost every trip here is these four in a line, running west. What you actually do in each is not the same, and neither is what it costs to start.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · A City Tour Of Samarkand: The Pearl Of The East
TashkentMetro mosaics, the Chorsu domes, mountains ninety minutes out.
SamarkandThe Registan, the tiled stairway at Shah-i-Zinda, Timur under a fluted dome.
BukharaTrading domes, a minaret Genghis Khan left standing, a pool with old mulberries.
KhivaOne walled town, twenty minutes end to end, a week of detail inside it.
All 271 days out in Uzbekistan →
Samarkand rewards the tours that go indoors.
Three madrasahs on one square, a necropolis of blue tile up a flight of steps, and Timur under a fluted dome. The difference between a good Samarkand day and a wasted one is how much of it happens inside the courtyards rather than in front of them.
The days out more travellers take than anything else in Uzbekistan.
Every tour in the country →Same square, same fortresses, very different days. These are the ones people keep choosing, and what each one is actually for.
1
Samarkand One Day Tour – Departure From Tashkent
Review of the Samarkand day tour from Tashkent by high-speed train, covering major monuments, lunch, transport, value, and practical tips.
From · $219
Read our review →
2
Private Samarkand City Tour With Transportation
from $54
3
A City Tour Of Samarkand: The Pearl Of The East
from $16
4
Tashkent City Tour
from $69
5
Samarkand One Day Tour: one day walking & group tour
from $25
6
Amirsoy, Chimgan & Charvak Full-Day Adventure
from $39
7
Shahrisabz Day Trip with Optional Local Guide
from $65
8
Best of Bukhara: All Day Private Old Town Tour
from $65
Bukhara sprawls. Khiva fits inside one gate.
Bukhara is a working town with a monument on every third corner and a pool where the old men still sit out the afternoon. Khiva is a walled museum, and it turns quiet after four when the day trips drive off. Two nights each. Do not try to do them in one day.
Every Bukhara day out →
Uzbekistan does not stop at the tiled cities.
Mud fortresses that have stood in the Kyzylkum since before Islam reached it. Ships rusting on a seabed that dried out inside one lifetime. Felt camps under a sky with nothing in the way, and a reservoir the colour of the tilework, ninety minutes above the capital.
What a day out in Uzbekistan actually costs.
Every tour on the site, sorted by what it costs. A guided morning round Samarkand’s monuments comes in under the price of a museum ticket in most of Europe.
Guided walks round the old towns, group city tours, and a cooking class that finishes as lunch.
Private full days, the run over the pass to Shahrisabz, the mountains and the reservoir above Tashkent.
Multi-day runs down the old road, the Aral Sea by 4x4, and a night in a yurt in the Kyzylkum.
Three Uzbek days you cannot have anywhere else.
Old towns and open desert are common enough. A fishing fleet stranded sixty miles from water, mud castles older than Islam in this region, and a bed in the Kyzylkum are not.
The Ships at Muynak
The Aral was the fourth largest lake on earth inside living memory. Soviet cotton drank the two rivers that fed it and the water walked away north, leaving a fishing fleet sitting on salt. The hulls are still at Muynak. The shoreline is now a couple of hours further on again, and the drive out to it is most of what the day is.
- 1Daytrip from Khiva to Aral Sea Cemetery of Ships. All in one★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 52 reviews
- 2Muynak Ship Cemetery Tour From Nukus★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 32 reviews
- 3Aral Sea Adventures (2 day)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 30 reviews
The Desert Fortresses
Fifty-odd mud-brick castles stand in the Kyzylkum north-east of Khiva, some Zoroastrian, most of them older than Islam in this region. Ayaz Kala keeps its walls to full height on a ridge with nothing else in sight for miles. You climb them, you are usually the only people there, and the wind does the rest.
- 1Half Day Tour from Khiva to Old Fortresses!★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 66 reviews
- 2Daytrip From Khiva To Ancient Fortresses★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 60 reviews
- 3Ayazkala, Toprakkala & Kizilkala Fortress Tour From Khiva★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 33 reviews
A Night in a Yurt
Between Nurata and Lake Aydarkul the ground turns to low dunes and the camps go up in felt. Dinner comes off a fire, somebody plays a two-string dutar badly, and the sky does the thing skies only do when the nearest town is fifty miles away. It is a night rather than a day trip, and it is worth rearranging a week for.
- 12-Day Desert Yurt Camp Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 57 reviews
- 2Life As Nomads – Yurt Camp Tour with Night from Samarkand★★★★★★★★★★ 3.6 · 36 reviews
- 3Yurt stay and Hiking in the Nurata Mountains tour – 2 days★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 35 reviews
Four Uzbek bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be sorted from a chaikhana table the night before. These four cannot. They run on train seats, on a fixed number of beds, and on a mountain road that is only worth driving half the year.
- 01Afrosiyob high speed train tickets – Guaranteed PassSeats on the fast train between Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara go on sale to a set schedule and clear within days through spring and autumn. Everything else in the week hangs off which train you got.
- 02Daytrip from Khiva to Aral Sea Cemetery of Ships. All in oneThe ships sit hours of driving north of Khiva, over ground that needs a 4x4 and a driver who knows the track. It is a two day commitment and there are only so many vehicles running it.
- 032-Day Desert Yurt Camp TourA camp is a fixed number of beds in the middle of the Kyzylkum. Through April, May, September and October they fill, and there is no second camp down the road.
- 04Best of Tashkent Mountains: Amirsoy, Chimgan & Charvak TripThe mountains above Tashkent run on two seasons. The Amirsoy gondola turns in winter, Charvak is only worth swimming in high summer, and the months between give you neither.
Bukhara in July is not a walking city.
From late June the desert towns run to forty degrees and the tiled squares turn into griddles by ten in the morning. The answer is the one locals already use. Be out at first light, then get under a roof for six hours: a cool trading dome, somebody’s kitchen, a potter’s wheel, a courtyard with mulberry shade.
By place, west along the road
By kind of day: walk, kitchen, desert or train
Tashkent to Khiva: the week almost everybody does, west along the old road.
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